When they are toxic goodbye seems like a foreign word, as you run in circles with one another. Because it’s never just goodbye when it ends. It’s someone always coming back around. It’s the apology they’ve mastered and forgiving so many times, that even when it pains you whatever they’ve done now, it doesn’t even hurt.
It’s dangerous when someone hurts you so much that the pain they cause doesn’t even faze you anymore. When the disappointments become something to expect. When you make plans being surprised if they actually follow through. When the foundation of your expectations with this person is not a matter of if but when the other shoe will drop.
When will their personality change from caring about you at one moment and pushing you away the next? Where suddenly whatever has gone wrong in their life is a result of something you’ve done and the more you try and make it right the more damage you cause.
You pull them in close and try and love them but they are emotionally unavailable so you try harder being convinced love is something you should earn. And you think it’s love because you’ve invested so much time and energy and emotions into this thing.
It’s a whirlwind of chaos and intense emotions you become addicted to. It’s like you don’t even know what a normal relationship is like after them because someone texting you back, someone keeping their word, someone treating you well and not using you becomes foreign to you.
And you try and keep a brave face like it isn’t affecting you as greatly as it is. But with toxic relationships, it destroys you from the inside out. And you don’t even see the lasting effect it has.
It’s your eyes that grow dull with a blank look.
It’s a heart that is constantly broken.
It’s the words you don’t speak and silence and loneliness become familiar because you’re alone again.
It’s questioning everyone because when the one person you trusted most deceives you, you don’t even know how to build yourself back up after that.
It’s looking at your reflection and you don’t appreciate and love yourself the way you used to simply because the love you gave wasn’t enough for someone.
Because you at your best still fell short of everything they wanted even though you tried so hard to be it.
And you did everything you possibly could, only to lose yourself trying to keep someone who was never going to be yours.
You wanted to believe there was an actual connection there and feelings.
You wanted to believe in the false promises and the one days.
You wanted to believe every conversation meant as much to you as it did them and it wasn’t just something to kill time.
Then they became a habit. A part of your everyday routine. Someone who made you look forward to things but someone who also had the ability to ruin your best day.
An ignored text. Walking by you like your a stranger. Saying some snide comment and knowing exactly how to get under your skin.
This person who held you without touch.
This person knew exactly what to say and when to say it. There was a moment of promise meeting someone new and moving on, only to get that text or call you’ve never ignored before and you couldn’t seem to now. And they bring you right back to every emotion. They know it. You know it. No matter who you are with, you’re always going to love them more regardless of if they can reciprocate it or not.
And next thing you know, so much time has passed and you’re already in too deep you don’t even know which way to go anymore.
Because part of you wants to let go and move on and be with someone you deserve. Someone who respects you and treats you well but then the other half of you doesn’t know what will hurt more letting go or holding onto something like you have for so long.
It’s believing in someone’s good parts and not seeing them for who they are but rather who they can be and you think with enough time and patience maybe they’ll be that person.
But they take pieces of you to make themselves whole and you’re the one that’s left empty.
You think it’s love but if this is love all you learn is to fear it and run the other way because it isn’t supposed to hurt this badly.
It’s every careful step you take because they have you walking on eggshells and any wrong move will lead to another fight of screaming and cursing and it being your fault.
With someone who is toxic, you never look at them with confidence but rather overcome with fear of doing the wrong thing.
Anticipating an unfollow or a block or no reason other than they felt like it that day.
It’s the inconsistency of emotions but you should know that isn’t normal. Laughing and smiling and talking every day like your best friends over a few drinks only to ignore you the next week like they don’t know you at all. That isn’t normal.
Picking and choosing when to answer and when they want you isn’t normal.
Blowing up your newsfeed after ghosting you isn’t normal.
Saying I love you but then treating you like shit isn’t love and it isn’t normal.
But this person made you think all of these things were normal. This person made you think fucking with you was normal and games were okay.
I won’t tell you to let him go,
I won’t tell you to not answer his texts.
I won’t tell you, you deserve better.
Because I know you know those things.
What I will tell you is the day you do find the strength to let him go will be the hardest day of your entire life. And the days that turn into weeks and months will hurt too.
There will be times you want to just go back.
But one day when you do begin to heal and realize you’ve always been better off without this person, you’re going to cross paths with them and you’ll finally get the apology you’ve always wanted, you’ll finally get the treatment and respect you’ve always deserved. But by then you won’t need any of it.
Because overcoming a toxic relationship teaches you, you have the ability to beat someone who destroyed you. [tc-=mark]
